Reposted by Gwen
I am brave *cries into pillow after dealing with any government entity*
Gwen
@gpriest0.bsky.social
449 followers 206 following 45 posts
32 | she/ella | Gender Ideologue and Pedagogue in SoCal | 🎺🎼📝🏳️⚧️ΘΔ | Don't Ask Me about Anything | pfp by my friend Jhosie @goldrathgal
![Narration: I turn 30 years old today. It feels weird, man.
[GwenFox; a cartoon fox, looks concerned. Her thought bubble shoulda a birthday cheesecake with "30" shaped candles dripping in red liquid.]
I don't dread being "old". The passage of time is just a heavy thought to sit with.
[Gwen looks off into the sunset from a balcony.]
Last December, I reached out to old friends I hadn't seen since high school graduation. We had a nice brunch, catching up on our lives and careers.
[Gwen has brunch with two shadows of her former friends in front of a window.]
In a way, it was uncanny. Surrounding me was my hometown, a reanimated corpse of strip malls that were barely recognizable.
[Through the window is a strip mall with a restaurant that reads "Ass Crack Burgers".]
So much has happened, the surrounding world being evident of itself moving on. I can only move forward, and when I turn around... the past will be gone.
[Dressed as Orpheus from the ancient Greek story "Orpheus and Eurydice", Gwen climbs a mountain with someone holding her arm from behind. But when she turns around, nobody's there.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yxymk2zy6pb6lqzftqn5z2ui/bafkreieqgu7pzwtbkkvpvvhmkbdt3fwgin362lnvlqggsmio65an63e7iu)
![Narration: My bio mom turns 49 this year. We started talking again after 5 years of keeping distance. But strangely, she seems unmoved by time. The woman's situation changed, but her observations were as uncurious as the day I stopped talking to her.
[GwenFox talks to a shadow of her mother over the phone.]
She was a young mom, and when I look back at all the times she screamed and cried when I was a child...I realize that she was a kid herself.
[Cut to Gwen's childhood. From Kid-Gwen's point of view, she is holding her mom's hand as she's being screamed at, shouting: "Why don't you want to change your last name?!! He's your dad now!!! Do you hate me???". When the narration describes Gwen's mom as a kid herself, we see her being pregnant.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yxymk2zy6pb6lqzftqn5z2ui/bafkreigx62tvy7wozsikyy4nqjhmr4xbux3k56qmuoglp4n6d6gdzr7hu4)
![Narration: The Earth will keep spinning, and I will keep evolving. Change is uncertain, but stagnation terrifies me.
[GwenFox sees her shadow behind her as her mother's silhouette.]
My twenties was when I made amazing friends...
[We see Gwen's history through printed photographs. Gwen talks to shadows of her old friends.]
...when my heart was broken...
[Gwen is crying on a couch next to somebody who's shadow has no recognizable features.]
...and when I found myself again. I may not recognize what I become by my forties...
[Gwen is in front of a puddle of her old tears, and looks at her own hands.]
But whoever I turn out to be, if there's still enough of me left... I hope that she stays kind and full of love.
[Gwen tears her skin off, revealing the shadow of an unknown person.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yxymk2zy6pb6lqzftqn5z2ui/bafkreiaebqagvwyyoqem4sjpqoflqj4v6js6cr24di6irlo5pkuiph2rie)
